Struggles inside, from free-throw line bring Mustangs' playoff run to an end with 55-38 loss to DeSoto

George Watson

Friday

Feb 28, 2014 at 7:32 PM

FORT WORTH - For three quarters Friday night, the Coronado boys basketball team played even with the No. 2 team in the state.

Unfortunately for the Mustangs, the one quarter they didn't was the first, and that forced them to play catch-up the entire night.

DeSoto jumped out to an early lead and weathered every Coronado surge for a 55-38 victory over the Mustangs in a Class 5A Region I semifinal at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum .

"There's a reason they're number two in the state," Coronado coach Randy Dean said. "They're very talented all the way across the board and we saw that tonight.

"Their big guy dominated the game in the first half and then their guards controlled things in the second half from a defensive standpoint, allowed them to get out on the break and keep us at arms length the rest of the way."

Trey Culver led the Mustangs with 13 points and Duncan Douglas added 11Coronado's stellar playoff run ends at 26-7, quite a feat considering the Mustangs went into the playoffs on a two-game losing streak but played their best basketball over the past two weeks by doing the little things right.

Those little things included free-throw shooting, which could have kept the Mustangs in the game against the Eagles (30-3). But going 10 for 22 from the charity stripe was a big reason they spent most of the game in a hole from which they could never completely climb.

That, and the height disadvantage from Eagles senior center Terry Maston. The 6-foot-7 Maston dominated inside with 18 points and was a tough matchup even for Coronado senior centers Douglas (6-7) and Devondric Meadows (6-5).

It was guard Takedrick Brown, however, who was most responsible for DeSoto's early lead. He had nine points in a 11-0 run that turned a 5-4 Coronado lead into a 15-5 deficit at the end of the first quarter. Brown finished with a game-high 19 points.

Coronado was 1 for 6 from the free throw line in the period as well.

"You never know how it's going to turn out. You can't predict that," Dean said. "But it obviously let them get that separation between us when we had a chance to go and convert and get some points, and we didn't get them. Then it let them score and get that separation. That was a big part of the game early."

During the first half, both Douglas and Emoree Giddens picked up two fouls, negating the Mustangs' best defensive presence.

That's when Maston took over. DeSoto led 17-8 when he hit three straight buckets to push the lead to 23-8. The teams traded points from there as DeSoto took a 30-15 advantage into the halftime lockerroom.

Coronado, however, had one last push and was inches away from getting back into the game.

Trailing 34-15 early in the third period, Douglas scored seven of his 11 points in a 9-0 run that cut the DeSoto lead to 10 at 34-24. But after a timeout, the Eagles finished the third quarter on an 8-0 run to lead 42-24, and the Mustangs never got closer than 13 the rest of the way.

"It kind of seemed like we got in there and felt like that we could climb back into the game a little bit at that point in time," Dean said. "We came out of the timeout and had a defensive breakdown and gave up an easy one to them, then we got sloppy with the ball behind it and let them go on a run, which is what great teams do."

Dean knew it was going to take an almost perfect effort for the Mustangs to keep their playoff run alive, and despite the 17-point loss, never considered the game out of hand.

"We needed a lot of the little things, a lot of the details of the game to go our way and they really didn't. I told the guys I never felt like we were miles away from them, I thought we were inches away all night long. It probably sounds a little crazy when you see the score but that's just kind of the way it felt from the sideline. That came down to those little things that we needed to swing our way and they just didn't tonight."